Intranet and radiology: a critical appraisal of radiological applications of Intranet technology

The World-Wide Web (WWW or Web) is the service which led to the huge popularity of the Internet by making it user friendly. Already in the early years of the Web, this technology was also used to make internal information systems easier to use and hospitals and departments set up "Intranets". An Intranet consists of a Web Server which is installed within a local area network (LAN) and allows information retrieval with a Web browser. This paper highlights the different fields of Intranet applications in radiology and in the hospital and focuses on systems for organisational issues as well as for patient data distribution. While an Intranet can be a solution for many problems, not only in radiology, it is accompanied by serious threats and common misunderstandings which are discussed.